Talk:List of dates predicted for apocalyptic events

Eukaryotic extinction. Description contradicts the cited reference.

Under Scientific predictions

1.3 billion S. Franck, C. Bounama, W. Von Bloh It's estimated all Eukaryotic life will die out due to carbon dioxide starvation. Only prokaryotes will remain. [123]

However, in the reference paper [123] the text is "Eucaryotes and complex life extinct because of too high surface temperatures in the future." Carbon dioxide starvation is the fate of the procaryotes "The ultimate life span of the biosphere is defined by the extinction of procaryotes in about 1.6 Gyr because of CO2 starvation" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2a00:23c4:8480:1d00:d9ad:324d:618b:1165 (talk) 09:04, 25 July 2017‎ (UTC)

Jesus and "this generation"

Lately I've seen the statements attributed to Jesus regarding his own return in the gospels being added and removed by other editors multiple times. Do we need to talk about this again? This has been brought up three times on this talk page already (here, here and here), though I will note there was never any clear consensus reached on the matter. Many people have added the prediction over the years (myself included, here is when I added it back in 2011 [1]) and naturally it has been removed an equal number of times. Personally I wasn't a fan of the most recent wording [2], I thought my own was more neutral (please note one of the sources I used to back up my original addition fails WP:RS; my mistake). Anyway I just thought I should bring it up to see if people can reach an agreement about this. It's true it isn't a specific date as it was last written, though neither are several other predictions, and it could be reworded (appropriately sourced of course) to set the date range within a biblical generation of the prediction being made. Based on the gospels, Jesus is very clearly predicting his own return, though of course whether he actually said any of those things attributed to him is a complete other story, one which hopefully doesn't need to get dragged into this. Damien Linnane (talk) 06:36, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

I think the problem is that Jesus didn't mention a specific date and the list is about dates, which should not include vague predictions for a unspecified future. - Alumnum (talk) 13:25, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

Several of the other items in the list are ranges, so we're not requiring it be narrowed down to a particular date or year. I agree that the prediction attributed to Jesus is somewhat vague (as were many others on the list), but I don't think it's correct to say that it is "unspecified." He said this would happen while some people hearing him were still alive. Since the maximum human lifespan is around 100 years, this lets us attach a range of years. I'm open to discussion about rewording this to be more like Damien's edit, if several of us can agree that's better. I went for my wording because it seemed neutral to just quote the verse without adding commentary. I had considered adding a second item after Jesus for the apostle Paul. He seems to have been quite confident that the 2nd coming would happen during his lifetime: "For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever." (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, emphasis mine) If there are criteria that require us to exclude these two, what are they? Is it just that they didn't mention specific dates or years? How common and standardized were dates and years then? Isn't tying the prediction to certain people still being alive a fairly specific prediction? Do some of the other early items on the list refer more to events and circumstances like this than actual official dates? My concern is that people are reverting my edit just out of deference to a religion rather than out of a neutral effort toward accuracy. Personman2 (talk) 16:20, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

There are many things to be considered. First of all, the dates in the list are the dates the predictions refer to, not the dates they were made, so "27–30 CE" is probably not right. Secondly, we would need a source stating that Jesus made a prediction, otherwise that would be just original research and interpretation since the Bible is largely open to interpretation. The same goes for the range; consider that Israelites back then believed that some humans could live up to over 900 years old (e.g. Methuselah). There may be also disagreement about what people are specifically included in the "we" Jesus refers to. Evidently enough, our personal opinions and interpretations on these are not enough; we would need sources stating something about them. If the verse was something like "the world will end a hundred years from now", little would we be discussing here, but please note that the other predictions (or those I have observed, at least) are clearly and undoubtedly predictions, with documents proving that people mentioned dates and spread the idea that something apocalyptic would happen at that date. - Alumnum (talk) 04:00, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Does a politician misquoting a science report really qualify as a 'prediction'? Bkatcher (talk) 18:54, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

I don't think so. I wouldn't have added that. I support its removal. Damien Linnane (talk) 21:14, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

never ending story

the more you know about the end the less you know. Boom — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.224.234.105 (talk) 16:46, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

Thank you. This is the smartest thing I’ve heard from these people. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:A000:C7C1:2F00:C962:4B60:E75B:85F8 (talk) 05:38, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

"Eschatological predictions" header

Earlier versions of the article (specifically the version that was promoted to FL) didn't include the level 2 header "Eschatological predictions", and just had "Past predictions" and "Future predictions" as separate level 2 headers. This made sense to me, since one or two of the past predictions (most notably the Year 2000 problem) you wouldn't necessarily describe as being eschatological. Why was the header added? I'd propose removing at again for simplicity's sake, but I welcome any thoughts. Thanks, A Thousand Doors (talk | contribs) 17:24, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

I remember reverting similar edits a while back. Someone tried to change the heading to 'Religious' predictions I think, and I changed it back on the grounds not all the predictions are religious. I don't recall where the latest change came from. I'll change it back to 'Past' and 'Future' as I completely agree with you. Damien Linnane (talk) 01:18, 24 March 2019 (UTC)